The Influence of Flow Experience on Online Consumers' Information Searching Behavior: An Empirical Study of Chinese College Students

Abstract

With the rapid development of the online shopping market in recent years, flow theory has become one of the main theories used to explore online consumers’ shopping behaviors. Although flow experience may influence information searching behavior, little is known about this topic. This study explored the impacts of flow experience on online consumers’ information searching behavior in festival shopping. The questionnaire survey was conducted in several universities in China. The data, collected from 154 college students, were analyzed quantitatively. As the three key components of flow experience, perceived pleasure has negative effect on information searching frequency, whereas concentration has positive effect on information searching frequency. Perceived control does not have a significant impact on information searching frequency. It also revealed consumers’ information searching behavior positively affecting their purchase intentions in this special shopping context. We found that flow experience is an important psychological factor influencing online consumers’ information searching behavior. The study enriches the emotional dimension of information behavior model and provides insight into the relationships between positive psychological variables with flow experience as the representation and information searching behavior in shopping context.

A moderated mediation mechanism underlying the impact of website telepresence on purchase intention — Evidence from Chinese female college student customers

“…and are more likely to indulge in the purchase process. E-commerce, in contrast, is supported by network technology and largely intangible (Darley et al, 2010;Wang and Wang, 2020). In online shopping, consumers get access to information about the commodities of interest mainly by searching on the internet.…”

“…Originally developed to account for activities such as reading, music, invention, it has been extended to and highly valued in e-commerce. Flow experience affects consumer online information searching behaviors (Mathwick and Rigdon, 2004;Wang and Wang, 2020) and has been associated with positive perceptions and attitudes toward website browsing (Shim et al, 2015), brand loyalty (Zhou et al, 2010;Shim et al, 2015;Su et al, 2016) as well as purchase intention (Ozkara et al, 2017). These findings have well-established flow experience as a major psychological construct accounting for the impact of telepresence on shopping behaviors.…”

“…Despite this, till now little has been known about the boundary conditions for the mediation of flow experience (Wang and Wang, 2020). In the current study, we decided to investigate its susceptibility to socioeconomic status (SES), a prominent demographic variable for company marketing.…”

“…In light of this, the present study aimed to explore the role of flow experience underlying the impact of website telepresence on purchase intention, especially how the socioeconomic status of e-shoppers would moderate the mediation effect. We included purchase attention as the dependent variable because of its significantly positive influence on online shopping behavior (Lim et al, 2016;Wang and Wang, 2020). Answers to these questions can help us delineate how flow experience functions in e-commerce circumstances and contribute to the flow theory.…”

The impact of customer engagement on customer happiness

“…Firstly, the idea that brand engagement can induce happiness is supported by flow theory, which defines flow as a level of engagement with a specific activity (or brand) that corresponds to a state of mind in which time passes quickly (Wang & Wang, 2020). Engagement is also the first step toward value co‐creation, loyalty, and satisfaction, especially when attempting to position a brand (Brodie et al, 2011; van Doorn et al, 2010; Vivek et al, 2012).…”